Northwestern Mutual Plans $450 Million, 32-Story Tower

The design for what would be Milwaukee's tallest new office building in more than 20 years, set to be unveiled this week, combines two motifs that often compete: a high-rise exterior typically associated with staid finance and law firms and a large, open interior popularized by Silicon Valley.

Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Co., founded in the 1800s, is building the $450 million, 32-story tower on its existing downtown campus near Lake Michigan. When completed, Northwestern Mutual's curved glass tower will be the state's largest single-tenant office building.

"It's a sign that the economy is starting to come back," Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett said of the new tower.

Northwestern Mutual's tower also shows how new workplace-design ideas often associated with technology companies operating out of converted industrial buildings are taking hold far away from Silicon Valley. Companies from a range of industries are trying to make their workplaces more collaborative, eschewing private offices in favor of open space.

"What we're seeing is a demographic shift where a newer generation prefers to be in an urban setting and that's coinciding with the national trend toward more collaborative space," said Dan Jessup, an office broker in Milwaukee with Jones Lang LaSalle.

Architectural firm Pickard Chilton of New Haven, Conn., designed the building with a focus on accommodating the way people now work and interact. The building will offer expansive lake views from loft-style open offices. The top floor will be public space that includes a conference room and a larger room with vaulted ceilings that can be used for meetings and other events, said Jon Pickard, co-founding principal at Pickard Chilton.

The tower's bottom three-story base, dubbed the Commons, will include a company cafeteria designed to be a central meeting space for employees from all buildings, as well as spaces for informal meetings and a public cafe on the street level. It also will be connected to existing buildings on campus.

"It's an incredible opportunity to change the way we're working," said John Schlifske, chief executive of Northwestern Mutual, noting the new tower was designed in part to help the company attract and retain workers.

Yet Mr. Schlifske's office will remain in a neoclassical building next door, a decision he said reflects the company's view of the tower as an investment in its workforce rather than as a palace for senior executives.

The design will stop short of amenities common in Silicon Valley. "We won't have slides and foosball tables and nobody's going to be drinking beer at their desk but it's more West Coast than Midwest," Mr. Schlifske said.

The tower's planned 550-foot height will make it one of the city's tallest, though the tallest will remain the 601-foot U.S. Bank Center built in 1970s, according to the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat. Mr. Pickard said he wasn't tempted to push to make it taller because the current building is a better match to the company's needs. He also said the building's features reflected the growing focus in the U.S. on building well-thought-out working environments.

"The days of slathering on lots of granite and marble to make it more precious are disappearing," he said. "You're seeing buildings that are more responsive to employee needs."

Northwestern Mutual, which has about 3,000 of its 5,000 employees at its downtown Milwaukee campus, expects the new tower will help it accommodate some 1,900 new jobs it aims to add downtown.

The bigger tower will be built with the help of $54 million in city tax incentives. Northwestern Mutual decided to revamp and expand in the city rather than on an existing nearby suburban campus because of the city's financial support, along with the firm's long history downtown.

The new tower and Northwestern Mutual's growth are a welcome sign for an older industrial city that has struggled to remake itself in the wake of an erosion of its manufacturing base. The office vacancy rate in Milwaukee's central business district stood at 18.4% in the second quarter, above the national rate of 17% but below the 19.6% peak in the second quarter of 2011, according to real-estate-research firm Reis Inc.

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